The most controversial alternative procedures has to be the coffee
enema. Along with other detoxification routines, the coffee
enema is a central part of both the Gerson and the Kelley programs. It is
always good for a laugh: "with milk or sugar?" This bizarre-sounding
treatment can also be used to scare people away from alternatives in general. No
quackbusting article these days is complete without a reference to "enemas
made from roasted coffee beans." So what's the story? Is the coffee
enema crackpot faddism or is there some rationale behind this procedure?

An enema is "a fluid injected into the rectum for the purpose of
clearing out the bowel, or of administering drugs or food." The word itself
comes from the Greek en-hienai, meaning to "send or inject into." The
enema has been called "one of the oldest medical procedures still in use
today." Tribal women in Africa, and elsewhere, routinely use it on their
children. The earliest medical text in existence, the Egyptian Ebers Papyrus,
(1,500 B.C.) mentions it. Millennia before, the Pharaoh had a "guardian of
the anus," a special doctor one of whose purposes was to administer the
royal enema.

The Greeks wrote of the fabled cleanliness of the Egyptians, which included
the internal cleansing of their systems through emetics and enemas. They
employed these on three consecutive days every month said Herodotus (II.77) or
at intervals of three or four days, according to the later historian Diodorus.
The Egyptians explained to their visitors that they did this because they
"believed that diseases were engendered by superfluities of the food",
a modern-sounding theory!

Enemas were known in ancient Sumeria, Babylonia, India, Greece and China.
American Indians independently invented it, using a syringe made of an animal
bladder and a hollow leg bone. Pre-Columbian South Americans fashioned latex
into the first rubber enema bags and tubes. In fact, there is hardly a region of
the world where people did not discover or adapt the enema. It is more
ubiquitous than the wheel. Enemas are found in world literature from
Aristophanes to Shakespeare, Gulliver Travels to Peyton Place.

In pre-revolutionary France a daily enema after dinner was de rigueur. It was
not only considered indispensable for health but practiced for good complexion
as well. Louis XIV is said to have taken over 2,000 in his lifetime. Could this
have been the source of the Sun King's sunny disposition? For centuries, enemas
were a routine home remedy. Then, within living memory, the routine use of
enemas died out. The main times that doctors employ them nowadays is before or
after surgery and childbirth. Difficult and potentially dangerous barium enemas
before colonic X rays are of course still a favorite of allopathic doctors.

But why coffee? This bean has an interesting history. It was imported in
Arabia in the early 1500's by the Sufi religious mystics, who used it to fight
drowsiness while praying. It was especially prized for its medicinal qualities,
in both the Near East and Europe. No one knows when the first daring soul filled
the enema bag with a quart of java. What is known is that the coffee
enema appeared at least as early as 1917 and was found in the prestigious
Merck Manual until 1972. In the 1920s German scientists found that a caffeine
solution could open the bile ducts and stimulate the production of bile in the
liver of experimental animals.

Dr. Max Gerson used this clinically as part of a general detoxification
regimen, first for tuberculosis, then cancer. Caffeine, he postulated, will
travel up the hemorrhoidal to the portal vein and thence to the liver itself.
Gerson noted some remarkable effects of this procedure. For instance, patients
could dispense with all pain-killers once on the enemas. Many people have noted
the paradoxical calming effect of coffee
enemas. And while coffee
enemas can relieve constipation, Gerson cautioned:

"Patients have to know that the coffee
enemas are not given for the function of the intestines but for the
stimulation of the liver."

Coffee enemas were an
established part of medical practice when Dr. Max Gerson introduced them into
cancer therapy in the 1930s. Basing himself on German laboratory work, Gerson
believed that caffeine could stimulate the liver and gall bladder to discharge
bile. He felt this process could contribute to the health of the cancer patient.

Although the coffee enema
has been heaped with scorn, there has been some independent scientific work that
gives credence to this concept. In 1981, for instance, Dr. Lee Wattenberg and
his colleagues were able to show that substances found in coffee—kahweol and
cafestol palmitate—promote the activity of a key enzyme system, glutathione S-transferase,
above the norm. This system detoxifies a vast array of electrophiles from the
bloodstream and, according to Gar Hildenbrand of the Gerson Institute,
"must be regarded as an important mechanism for carcinogen
detoxification." This enzyme group is responsible for neutralizing free
radicals, harmful chemicals now commonly implicated in the initiation of cancer.
In mice, for example, these systems are enhanced 600 percent in the liver and
700 percent in the bowel when coffee beans are added to the mice's diet.

Dr. Peter Lechner, who is investigating the Gerson method at the
Landeskrankenhaus of Graz, Austria, has reported that "coffee
enemas have a definite effect on the colon which can be observed with an
endoscope." F.W. Cope (1977) has postulated the existence of a "tissue
damage syndrome." When cells are challenged by poison, oxygen deprivation,
malnutrition or a physical trauma they lose potassium, take on sodium and
chloride, and swell up with excess water.

Another scientist (Ling) has suggested that water in a normal cell is
contained in an "ice-like" structure. Being alive requires not just
the right chemicals but the right chemical structure. Cells normally have a
preference for potassium over sodium but when a cell is damaged it begins to
prefer sodium. This craving results in a damaged ability of cells to repair
themselves and to utilize energy. Further, damaged cells produce toxins; around
tumors are zones of "wounded" but still non-malignant tissue, swollen
with salt and water.

Gerson believed it axiomatic that cancer could not exist in normal
metabolism. He pointed to the fact that scientists often had to damage an
animal's thyroid and adrenals just to get a transplanted tumor to
"take." He directed his efforts toward creating normal metabolism in
the tissue surrounding a tumor.

It is the liver and small bowel which neutralize the most common tissue
toxins: polyamines, ammonia, toxic-bound nitrogen, and electrophiles. These
detoxification systems are probably enhanced by the coffee
enema. Physiological Chemistry and Physics has stated that "caffeine
enemas cause dilation of bile ducts, which facilitates excretion of toxic cancer
breakdown products by the liver and dialysis of toxic products across the
colonic wall."

In addition, theophylline and theobromine (two other chemicals in coffee)
dilate blood vessels and counter inflammation of the gut; the palmitates enhance
the enzyme system responsible for the removal of toxic free radicals from the
serum; and the fluid of the enema then stimulates the visceral nervous system to
promote peristalsis and the transit of diluted toxic bile from the duodenum and
out the rectum.

Since the enema is generally held for 15 minutes, and all the blood in the
body passes through the liver every three minutes, "these enemas represent
a form of dialysis of blood across the gut wall" (Healing Newsletter, #13,
May-June, 1986).

Prejudice against coffee enemas
continues, however. Although this data was made available to Office of
Technology Assessment it was largely ignored in their box on the procedure. They
dismissively state "there is no scientific evidence to support the claim
that coffee enemas detoxify
the blood or liver."

No medical procedure is withsout risk and OTA is quick to point out alleged
dangers of the coffee enemas.
For instance, they cite one doctor's opinion that coffee "taken by this
route is a strong stimulant and can be at least as addictive as coffee taken
regularly by mouth." This may indeed be true. Yet one wonders where the
data is on this, and whether OTA would issue a similar warning about the perils
of coffee drinking.

Another potential danger, they say, is physical damage to the
rectum—"fatal bowel perforation and necrosis" which have been
associated with "various other types of enema." The risk of
perforation comes from the insertion device used. At the Gerson clinic, for
instance, they use a short nozzle which couldn't inflict much harm; Gonzalez
uses a soft rubber colon tube. In neither case would this caveat seem to apply.
On thin evidence, OTA also suggests enemas can cause colitis.

The agency also cites the case of the two Seattle women who died following
excessive enema use. Their deaths were attributed to fluid and electrolyte
abnormalities. One took 10 to 12 coffee
enemas in a single night and then continued at a rate of one per hour. The
other took four daily. As OTA points out, "in both cases, the enemas were
taken much more frequently than is recommended in the Gerson treatment."

In general, coffee enemas
are an important tool for physicians who try to detoxify the body. This is not
to say they are a panacea. They certainly require much more research. But coffee
enemas are serious business: their potential should be explored by good
research—not mined for cheap shots at alternative medicine or derisively
dismissed as yet another crackpot fad.

Ralph W. Moss, Ph.D. is the author of eight books and three documentaries on
cancer-related topics. He is an advisor on alternative cancer treatments to the
National Institutes of Health, Columbia University, and the University of Texas.
He researches and writes individualized Healing Choices reports for people with
cancer. For information on Healing Choices, you can contact coordinator Anne
Beattie in the following ways:

Disclaimer: The Cancer Chronicles nor s.a.Wilsons Therapy Blend. does not
advocate any particular treatment for cancer. We urge you to seek competent
medical advice for any malignancy. Please read our full Disclaimer statement.

This web site is designed for educational
purposes only and is not engaged in rendering medical advice or professional
services. The information provided through this web site should not be
used for diagnosing or treating a health problem or a disease. It is not a
substitute for professional care. If you have or suspect you may have a
health problem, you should consult your health care provider.